The Lady Wolfpack suffered a significant blow when Trenell Smith, business management senior,  sustained an injury to her knee Nov. 27 during the 77-73 win against Lambuth University.

“It’s sore,” Trenell said. “It’s still a little puffy.”

Her sister, Trenese, became worried as soon as she saw her sister lying on the court in pain.

“When I saw her grab her knee I was like ‘oh my God’,” she said. “I was the first one to run to her and comforted and told her that she would be fine.”

It is not clear what her status is. Smith visited the doctor and had an M.R.I. to see the severity of the injury. The results haven’t come in yet.

“When she went down I was very concerned because of the way she fell and the way she reacted,” head coach Kellie Kennedy said.

“But as soon as I got out there and Brad got out there, we didn’t think it was going to be bad. But it’s always going to be a scary moment.”

Kennedy is not worried about this injury affecting the team’s performance.

“We lost her in the first 50 seconds of the game against Lambuth and we had people step up and we were still able to beat them, pretty much without her at all,” Kennedy said.

“We’re confident that, if we have to, we can play without her, but that’s obviously something we don’t want to happen.”

Trenell has been out since the win against Lambuth as a precaution until she gets the M.R.I. and knows exactly what is wrong with her knee.

“I can’t jump,” Trenell said. “I can’t do any of the things that I normally do on the court, yet. I’m out right now.”

This injury allowed Kennedy to experiment different options to replace Trenell.
She believes this will help the team in the long run because it will add depth to their roster by giving new players significant playing time.

“You’re not going to replace Trenell with a person,” Kennedy said. “You’re going to replace her with a combination of people who can do different things.”

Kennedy has noticed many things from her players, since Trenell went down with the injury.

“The biggest thing is that Trenese stepped up and said ‘give me the ball,'” she said.

“She could have responded in two different ways and she took the high road. She knew we needed her and she responded and came out and led our team.”

Since it has not been long after the game against Lambuth, Kennedy has not had time to see how Trenell will influence the team, but she has an idea of what it might be like.

“Trenell is going to do what Trenell does,” she said.

“She’s going to be a leader whether she’s sitting there ready to play or whether she’s waiting to get better and she’s going to lead and inspire and all those things she does when she’s not on the court.”

This is Trenell’s last season as a member of the Lady Wolfpack since she will be lost due to graduation, so every game means a lot to her, especially this year.

“I want to play,” she said. “I don’t like sitting on the sidelines watching everybody playing just thinking that I could be out there helping everybody.”

Eduardo Gonzalez can be reached at [email protected]